StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Trailer Invades the Web

By

Yannick LeJacq

Jan 22, 2013 4:33 pm ET

With Diablo III finally under its belt and pandas filling out the roster of “World of Warcraft,” Blizzard is turning its attention back towards the third of its major franchises: Starcraft. The company released a new trailer for Starcraft 2’s highly-anticipated expansion, Heart of the Swarm, on Tuesday morning, and the video sheds some light on the events that have transpired since the cliffhanger ending of 2010’s installment, Wings of Liberty.

Mimicking the structure of the original Starcraft single-player campaign, Wings of Liberty puts players in charge of Terran (that’s Starcraft-speak for “human”) good guy Jim Raynor and his ragtag outfit of alien-fighting vigilantes. Raynor made a last-ditch effort to save his friend and possible love interest Sarah Kerrigan after Terran forces abandoned her to the Zerg—an insectoid species that serves as humanity’s primary antagonist. Now in the new trailer, Kerrigan appears in full Zerg glory as “The Queen of Blades” to exact her revenge on humanity.

Heart of the Swarm passes the mantle to the Zerg themselves, putting players in Kerrigan’s position as she wrestles for control of the Zerg forces. In a first for the wildly popular real-time strategy franchise, Kerrigan will level-up throughout the campaign, improving her abilities and making her a more customizable player character.

The expansion also adds several new units to each of the three playable species—Terran, Zerg, and the Protoss, a brooding, mystical race of aliens with Jedi-like psychic powers—for competitive online gameplay, which has long been the core of the Starcraft experience for most players.

While many avid Starcraft fans are still upset by the fact that Blizzard chose to release Starcraft 2 in three pricey installments over the course of six years, it’s not hard to imagine those same gamers lining up eagerly for Heart of the Swarm’s PC release on March 12 this year.

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